Sacrifices
by CardioQueen
Summary: Post 03.09 Spoilerish Bang stuff. Can you tell that this episode really got me going? Burke and Cristina make sacrifices to move on in their relationship.


Dr. Cristina Yang was not a crier. She had never been a crier, even as an infant, her mother often forgot to pay attention to her because she did not cry out when she needed attention.

Often in periods of turmoil, Cristina would focus on this fact, and try her very best to thrive upon it. To her, tears were vulnerability, they were weaknesses exposed and fears discovered.

But that did not matter now. 

He had closed the door in her face.

Her strong and invulnerable resolve faded to that of weakness and vulnerability in a matter of seconds. Her heart of steel began to ache as each tear dropped from her eyes, slid down her porcelain cheeks and marred her pink t-shirt.

She had sacrificed her reputation, her resolve. She had sacrificed it in the name of his love, their love.

"Burke." she choked on his name. "Burke, open up the door." her voice was a near whisper for fear that anything louder would give her the result that she did not desire.

But there was no response. There was nothing but a door in her face.

Again, the tears began to fall harder, and she began to feel cold, though there was no draft in their apartment.

Or was it his apartment.

There were no lines drawn as of yet, and that scared her.

Finally, the door opened and she found herself in his grasp, but there was something different about his touch.

It wasn't loving...protective as it had characteristically been.

It was angry.

He pulled her closer by her shoulders and looked down at her with pained eyes, his lips curled into a disappointed frown, "Why, Cristina? Why couldn't you just trust me?"

She was speechless for one of the many times in their relationship. His grasp on her only made her cry more, and the tears were falling easier.

He loosened his grip on her tiny tensed shoulders, "Tell me why you couldn't trust me." his voice was low, commanding.

"I panicked." she whispered, looking down to the floor.  
To her the admission was worse than saying that she just didn't trust him. To her panic was the antithesis of who she was, who she used to be before Preston Burke came in and took away her edge, and made her fall in love with him.

"You panicked?" he repeated in a slow and steady voice.

She nodded at him, biting her bottom lip nervously, "I panicked. You had, you had snapped at me through the entire surgery. I was nervous...on edge already, and you made it worse. When you sent me away in favor of Bailey, it pushed me over the edge."

"So you decided to out me to the Chief because you were upset with me?" his hands slid off of her shoulders, and took their place on his waist as they usually did when he was angry.

"That's not it!" she argued back.

He was taken aback. He'd never seen this kind of emotion, this kind of passion in her before. "Then what's it?", he questioned her, unsure of how to proceed.

"I don't know."

"For such a bright student and excellent intern, you don't know the answers to a lot of things." he retorted haughtily.

"That's not fair." she sniffed, looking up to him with eyes shining with anger and sadness all at the same time.

"Excuse me?"

"That's not fair. You blamed this whole thing on me, the tremors, everything. You've blamed it on me and my...what was the phrase you used, oh yeah...emotional shortcomings!" her hands flew in the air as she became more and more upset, "Do you see this? Do you see this now? These tears?" she motioned to her face, "Do these look like 'emotional shortcomings' to you?"

For the first time in the day, he was struck speechless as the woman he loved sobbed in front of him. He began to realize nor think about how much he had hurt her.

"I've never cried, never. Not when I was a baby, not as a toddler, not as the 16 year old girl that got dumped at the dance for some cheerleader. But you? You've taken my heart, my world, my life, and turned it upside down. You've made me cry more times than I've ever cried in my life. You've made me worry. You've made me unsure. You've made me love. Isn't that good enough for you?" she continued frantically.

"Cristina..." he trailed off.

"I trust you, Burke. I'd have to for you to do to me what you've done. If me crying, showing you emotions that I refuse to show to anybody else isn't trust enough for you, I don't know what is." she whispered.

"You panicked." he mumbled, pulling her into his arms. "It's okay...you just panicked."

"I panicked." she sniffed, her face buried in his chest, "I panicked, and now you'll never be chief of surgery."

"Being chief is overrated." he replies dryly, lying to himself and her, "I don't want to deal with the things that Webber has had to deal with. Even more so, if I'm chief, how can we fix this?"

Cristina's heart stopped momentarily at the words 'fix this'. It's what she wanted. She wanted this nightmare to be over. She wanted to sleep in his arms again. She wanted to feel the kisses they shared. She wanted the long nights of intimacy. She longed for it all to be back to normal.

But at the same time she harbored reservations. She wasn't ready to have her heart broken again. She wasn't ready to put herself on the line like that again, only to have her resolve broken. Again.

"Burke, we don't need to worry about us." she lied, pulling herself away, "We need to figure out how we can get you in the chief's good graces again."

"Cristina." he chided lightly.

"No, you've wanted Chief all of your life. I've only been a part of your life for a short time...there's no comparison to be made."

"I can't spend the rest of my life with my position. I can't sleep with the position. I can't make love to the position. I can't marry the position." he argued, slightly taken aback.

Mere moments ago, he was angry with her, their relationship nearly ended. But now he was fighting for her.

Willing to make sacrifices for her that he wouldn't of ever thought himself capable of making.

Oh the things this woman did to him.

"Marry?" she gasped, her cheeks still red from the halted tears. "What do you mean, marry?"

Without a beat he answered, "I'm going to make you my wife one day. You know that."

She was astonished. This was the man who had just closed the door in her face. "Oh, you are?" was all she could get out.

"What did you expect Cristina? That we would just be boyfriend and girlfriend forever? I can't have that. This. What we have together, no matter how difficult things are, is all that matters to me now. I thought I wanted chief, I've thought that I wanted it for a long time, but now that I had the opportunity before everything happened, I didn't want it anymore. I knew what it meant. Look what it did to Richard and Adelle. It ruined their relationship." he took her petite hand in his. "I'm not willing to pay that price."

"Burke. I'm not worth it." she tried to retract her hand, but he pulled it closer.

"The job isn't worth it." he assured her, placing an arm around her waist and pulling her closer. "We still have problems. We still have issues to work out. But you, you are the only thing that matters anymore. You're sticking, remember?" He tipped her chin lightly up towards his.

"I'm sticking" she repeated in a soft, hopeful tone that he hadn't heard in a while.

"You're sticking." he mumbled, before leaning in for a long and tender kiss.

A kiss that begun to heal fresh wounds.

A kiss that begun to heal wounds of the past not yet healed.

A kiss that held promise for the future.

When they broke, Cristina felt breathless, her heart racing.

"I love you." he mumbled, still holding her tightly in her arms, "We have a lot to work through, but I need you and I love you."

She closed her eyes, listening closely for his heart beating in his chest. It was racing as well. "And I, you." she whispered, closing her eyes and feeling the turmoil of recent events slipping away.

Fin/tbc?

A/N: Okay. So I tried something different. Let me know how you like it. I might add more to this one. That's an awfully big might. I very much prefer one-shots.


End file.
